They're not technically officials, they're parliamentarians or government ministers who set the policy. Officials would be the public servants who have to do their bidding , enacting that policy who are mostly horrified by this current government.Doesn't stop them from obeying their idiocy but that's authoritarian power structures for you.

The public service is made of 'good men doing nothing'.

Not helped by the fact our media refuses to hold them to account. Even the Guardian (socially progressive but economically centre right) doesn't actually call them out on blatant lies and hypocrisy. ALP sadly not much better as they are also beholden to the same industries.

The fact that Australia has had FIVE PRIME MINISTERS in a decade because a bunch of reality-denying IDIOTS on the backbench of one of our two major political parties continue to dictate climate policy is the saddest, most depressing thing about this country.

Well, that and the whole thing where we lock refugee children up on prison camps on remote pacific islands.

But hey, Australia! The fun country with all the poisonous animals! Yay us!

The fact that Australia has had FIVE PRIME MINISTERS in a decade because a bunch of reality-denying IDIOTS on the backbench of one of our two major political parties continue to dictate climate policy is the saddest, most depressing thing about this country.

Well, that and the whole thing where we lock refugee children up on prison camps on remote pacific islands.

But hey, Australia! The fun country with all the poisonous animals! Yay us!

And! Wildfires! Droughts! Jellyfish!

On the plus side, you guys also grow Galaxy hops. But I guess I should add Monster! Hail! Storms! since most of the crop was wiped out a couple years ago.

This, as an Australian upsets me greatly. We have the ability and natural renewable resources to be a world leader with green tech. Instead we are driven by a quick buck and bad politics based on ideology, not evidence.

This, as an Australian upsets me greatly. We have the ability and natural renewable resources to be a world leader with green tech. Instead we are driven by a quick buck and bad politics based on ideology, not evidence.

With electricity prices as high as they are, grid defection has some real driving force in Australia.

This, as an Australian upsets me greatly. We have the ability and natural renewable resources to be a world leader with green tech. Instead we are driven by a quick buck and bad politics based on ideology, not evidence.

I wouldn't worry. Eventually economics will dictate coal out of existence, just like what's happening here in the US. Politicians can bleat on about saving coal all day long. But when it's less expensive to use natural gas, wind and solar with battery backup for storage, and hydro - well, that's where the power generation plants turn to rather than coal.

The current governing party federally in Australia is the Liberal Party. Don't let the name deceive you - the party adheres to "classical liberalism", particularly a belief in free markets, individualism and self-reliance. However, within that broad liberal church, there are two main groups, the "small-l liberals" or "moderates" who adhere to more social liberal policies, and the hard-line "conservatives" who believe in free markets and small government.

The latter group is absolutely in the ascendancy over the past several years. While the previous Prime Minister came from the moderate camp, he only got the job through personal popularity, and was absolutely hamstrung in every sense by the hardliners. They've since toppled him as leader, and the new Prime Minister, while being a "consensus choice", is much closer to the conservative camp.

The spiritual leader of the conservative faction is Tony Abbott, the former Prime Minister, who famously declared that the "so-called settled science of climate change" is "absolute crap", akin to the beliefs of "primitive people once killing goats to appease the volcano gods”. A year ago, he declared that it's "Climate change policy that’s doing harm. Climate change itself is probably doing good; or at least, more good than harm". It's a pretty safe bet that many of the conservative faction are behind him 100% in these beliefs, even if they are not so outspoken about them.

So, we have a governing party that is currently under the sway of its conservative faction, which seems to have very strong doubts about climate change. This has led to bizarre policies, like replacing the "renewable energy target" with a "reliable energy target" aimed at lowering prices, regardless of emissions, and demanding decrepit old coal-fire power plant stay open, even as its operator says that it's falling apart and that it is costing far more to run than renewable alternatives.

Coal is one of Australia's main exports, so it's not hard to see that a pro-business party, that still has real doubts about climate change, will try to prop up the industry, even as everyone else sees the writing on the wall.

See also Adani, who are trying to build a massive coal mine in the Galilee Basin of Queensland. Never mind that the coal there is of a relatively low grade. Never mind that it's right on top of the Great Artesian Basin, which is the source of water for a large part of the country. Never mind that it would require building out a massive amount of infrastructure to ship the coal to ports. Never mind that this is a company that has already breached its environmental license on multiple occasions.

Nope, it's full steam ahead, and damn the consequences, just so we can get a few extra jobs for a few years - and probably line a bunch of politicians' pockets into the bargain.

The Australian Labor Party may not be hugely better than the Liberal/National Coalition (don't be fooled by the name; the Australian Liberal Party is actually a bunch of conservatives, and they've essentially been taken over by the far-right faction in the past few years), but they're the best (realistic in the short to medium term) option we have in this respect, at least.

It's ridiculous. Here we are, a country with massive amounts of sparsely populated land, almost custom made to be a world leader in solar power, and this is what we're encouraging? For fuck's sake.

This, as an Australian upsets me greatly. We have the ability and natural renewable resources to be a world leader with green tech. Instead we are driven by a quick buck and bad politics based on ideology, not evidence.

I wouldn't worry. Eventually economics will dictate coal out of existence, just like what's happening here in the US. Politicians can bleat on about saving coal all day long. But when it's less expensive to use natural gas, wind and solar with battery backup for storage, and hydro - well, that's where the power generation plants turn to rather than coal.

I would worry. Relying on economics would result in extremely slow change as existing plants would likely remain cheaper than the capital investment required for new wind and solar. We simply can't afford to sit around waiting for coal power plants to be retired according to their usual life cycle.

The fact that Australia has had FIVE PRIME MINISTERS in a decade because a bunch of reality-denying IDIOTS on the backbench of one of our two major political parties continue to dictate climate policy is the saddest, most depressing thing about this country.

The fact that Australia has had FIVE PRIME MINISTERS in a decade because a bunch of reality-denying IDIOTS on the backbench of one of our two major political parties continue to dictate climate policy is the saddest, most depressing thing about this country.

Well, that and the whole thing where we lock refugee children up on prison camps on remote pacific islands.

But hey, Australia! The fun country with all the poisonous animals! Yay us!

And! Wildfires! Droughts! Jellyfish!

On the plus side, you guys also grow Galaxy hops. But I guess I should add Monster! Hail! Storms! since most of the crop was wiped out a couple years ago.

You forgot the gympie gympie. (Look it up. It's a real thing; fortunately, it doesn't grow in my area of the country.)

Unfortunatly Australia has been sticking it's head in the sand for a LONG time. It was one of the few countries under the original Kyoto protocol that actually promised to INCREASE it's CO2 output by 8%!!!!

This, as an Australian upsets me greatly. We have the ability and natural renewable resources to be a world leader with green tech. Instead we are driven by a quick buck and bad politics based on ideology, not evidence.

More like established interests and industries. Change requires social and political willpower. There isn’t much ideology involved here.

The batteries are primarily to handle voltage fluctuations in an energy grid that is increasingly dependant on wind, where the voltage is constantly fluctuating as wind speeds decrease in some areas while increasing elsewhere - and it's for primary power in a state where electricity is mostly used for residential homes and offices.

Coal is commonly used in other states that have much higher energy needs such as producing aluminium. Even with dirt cheap coal power, it costs somewhere around $1 per kg to provide energy to an aluminium plant. Increase power costs by even a small amount, and those industries will all be forced to shutdown, as they're already on the verge of being unprofitable (especially when compared to China, where hydro power is available at around half the price of coal power - Australia has almost no mountains, so Hydro doesn't really work at large scales).

As an Australian citizen I am appalled and ashamed of my government's response to the IPCC warning, and shall vent my displeasure at the next election.

In Australia we are regularly subjected to TV advertisements extolling the virtues of clean coal. Its fucking appalling.

Maybe someone should start sending packages of "clean coal" around to ministers and news outlets. As someone who used to do blacksmithing as a hobby, I can attest that coal is dirty nasty stuff.

Perhaps packages of powdered "clean" coal with a dispersion mechanism triggered by opening, similar to glitter bombs. Which is fitting, as an early "rise to fame" glitter bombing company was in Australia.

This, as an Australian upsets me greatly. We have the ability and natural renewable resources to be a world leader with green tech. Instead we are driven by a quick buck and bad politics based on ideology, not evidence.

More like established interests and industries. Change requires social and political willpower. There isn’t much ideology involved here.

You could be right, however with the way people like Abbott spout off their mouths I tend to think it likely both.

Environment Minister Melissa Price seemed just as unconcerned as McCormack, saying that "it would be 'irresponsible' to commit to phase out coal by 2050 because clean coal technology could be available by then," the Guardian reported.

Clean coal technology will never be available because it is simply a thin excuse to keep burning dirty coal.

I'm a physicist working for a University in Sydney. Myself and most of my colleagues are absolutely appalled by the federal government's attitude to science. When the current prime-minister was treasurer he brought a lump of coal into parliament, saying "don't be scared". The current Federal government is in thrall to the extreme right wing of the Liberal party, which is populated by many climate change deniers.

The coal industry *is in decline here* and yet the government is failing to plan for that change. Many town that rely on coal-mining will be gutted in the next decade and its in the governments power to help find alternatives.

So, what are the problems Wind Power and Solar Power face in Australia?

Apparently wind power causes "wind turbine disease". There's no evidence such a thing exists. In fact, all the evidence points to a weak correlation between wind farms and the disease, but a very strong link between "wind turbine disease experts" arriving in a town and reported symptoms.

This, as an Australian upsets me greatly. We have the ability and natural renewable resources to be a world leader with green tech. Instead we are driven by a quick buck and bad politics based on ideology, not evidence.

I wouldn't worry. Eventually economics will dictate coal out of existence, just like what's happening here in the US. Politicians can bleat on about saving coal all day long. But when it's less expensive to use natural gas, wind and solar with battery backup for storage, and hydro - well, that's where the power generation plants turn to rather than coal.

I would worry. Relying on economics would result in extremely slow change as existing plants would likely remain cheaper than the capital investment required for new wind and solar. We simply can't afford to sit around waiting for coal power plants to be retired according to their usual life cycle.

At least in the US the solar and wind are starting to fall under the O&M cost of coal. Meaning it is cheaper to stop using an existing already built and paid for coal plant and build wind or solar instead. It is still heavily site dependent but it is leading to coal plants shutting down even when they have 5, 10, even 15 years of life left. Wind and solar is only going to get even more cheaper.

So, what are the problems Wind Power and Solar Power face in Australia?

Apparently wind power causes "wind turbine disease". There's no evidence such a thing exists. In fact, all the evidence points to a weak correlation between wind farms and the disease, but a very strong link between "wind turbine disease experts" arriving in a town and reported symptoms.

Both recent non-Liberal PMs -- Rudd and Gillard -- lost their jobs due to conflicts over the Carbon Tax. Both were elected to three-year-terms, and despite the fact that three years is shorter then any term I've heard of outside the US House neither made it a full three years. If Labor tries again, and does the Carbon Tax thing again, that PM will also get canned at about 18 months.

Which means that the logical conclusion is not that evil fat cats are destroying democracy to protect climate change, it's that Australian Democracy will not let you solve climate change with a Carbon Tax. Which should make sense. Anyplace a Carbon Tax is proposed it's widely hated, and countries that actually succeed at fixing the problem tend to do literally everything except a Carbon Tax. In Germany's case Merkel even guaranteed a minimum number of coal jobs.

In other words, an idea that is very good from an economics wonk perspective (tax you want less of is the economist' favorite way to regulate) is totally unworkable in the real world because people hate paying taxes. In public policy in a democracy you need both the politics and the economics to work or your idea is shit.

So if you want to solve Australia's carbon problem please shut the fuck up about carbon taxes. Subsidize the fuck out of solar, wind, and tidal, but shut the fuck up about carbon taxes. And if Shorten won't shut the fuck up about carbon taxes get him fired now to save yourselves the trouble of doing it fucking later.

So, what are the problems Wind Power and Solar Power face in Australia?

There's a wind farm near my city (in Australia) that has just completed construction and is currently undergoing final testing before hooking up to the grid.

The only problem they faced was 10 years of grass roots protest movements preventing them from opening in all of their preferred location. They finally did find one where there were minimal protests, but it wasn't the best location in terms of how much wind there is and it's also much further away from the city than it should have been. If you drive within an hour of that location, the roadside is full of protest signs still trying to block the farm, with every quack theory imaginable (wind farms cause cancer, etc etc).

Basically they would find a good location, undergo expensive environmental approval process, get approved by the government, only to have approval later rejected on some technicality after widespread protests.

Solar has less problems, it's all over the place on rooftops everywhere, but obviously it doesn't provide power at night. I don't think the economics for solar are there yet if you need to store an entire night of energy? Does anyone know the numbers? All I ever see is small panels that sell power to the grid at ridiculously low prices (in my city, the solar feed in tariff is 9c per KWH (7c in US Dollars)).

We have hydro pretty much everywhere that makes sense, but since it's a very flat country with only a handful of rivers (and all of them small) there's only so much power you can get out of that.

So, what are the problems Wind Power and Solar Power face in Australia?

Solar has less problems, it's all over the place on rooftops everywhere, but obviously it doesn't provide power at night. I don't think the economics for solar are there yet if you need to store an entire night of energy? Does anyone know the numbers?

Maximum power demand is in the middle of the day ESPECIALLY in places like South Australia with heavy air-con use so the fact you don't get any power produced at night by solar isn't a problem. Personally I think Australia is perfect for solar.

The fact that Australia has had FIVE PRIME MINISTERS in a decade because a bunch of reality-denying IDIOTS on the backbench of one of our two major political parties continue to dictate climate policy is the saddest, most depressing thing about this country.

Well, that and the whole thing where we lock refugee children up on prison camps on remote pacific islands.

But hey, Australia! The fun country with all the poisonous animals! Yay us!

And! Wildfires! Droughts! Jellyfish!

On the plus side, you guys also grow Galaxy hops. But I guess I should add Monster! Hail! Storms! since most of the crop was wiped out a couple years ago.

You forgot the gympie gympie. (Look it up. It's a real thing; fortunately, it doesn't grow in my area of the country.)

The bit where the fruit is apparently edible if remove the stinging bits with the neurotoxin really just makes it kind of awesome. God, you learn something new every day.

As an Australian citizen I am appalled and ashamed of my government's response to the IPCC warning, and shall vent my displeasure at the next election.

In Australia we are regularly subjected to TV advertisements extolling the virtues of clean coal. Its fucking appalling.

Maybe someone should start sending packages of "clean coal" around to ministers and news outlets. As someone who used to do blacksmithing as a hobby, I can attest that coal is dirty nasty stuff.

Perhaps packages of powdered "clean" coal with a dispersion mechanism triggered by opening, similar to glitter bombs. Which is fitting, as an early "rise to fame" glitter bombing company was in Australia.

Both recent non-Liberal PMs -- Rudd and Gillard -- lost their jobs due to conflicts over the Carbon Tax. Both were elected to three-year-terms, and despite the fact that three years is shorter then any term I've heard of outside the US House neither made it a full three years. If Labor tries again, and does the Carbon Tax thing again, that PM will also get canned at about 18 months.

Which means that the logical conclusion is not that evil fat cats are destroying democracy to protect climate change, it's that Australian Democracy will not let you solve climate change with a Carbon Tax. Which should make sense. Anyplace a Carbon Tax is proposed it's widely hated, and countries that actually succeed at fixing the problem tend to do literally everything except a Carbon Tax.

Kevin Rudd proposed a cap-and-trade scheme (the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme), not a carbon tax. It was agreed to by Turnbull (the opposition leader) after some revisions, but then Turnbull was knifed by Abbott before it could be voted on. The opposition then declared it would no longer support the scheme. Some time later, Rudd dropped the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, deciding that he didn't have the numbers to pass it through parliament. As soon as he abandoned the scheme, he saw an immediate drop in his personal support in the polls.

In the end, Rudd's downfall was due to his decision to enact a mining industry super profits tax (nothing to do with carbon or emissions). There was a massive industry-wide campaign against this tax, saying it would threaten jobs, and the result was a huge swing against the Government in the polls.